Gelderland Police announced the hostage release in a message on X, formerly Twitter. They gave no further details about whether more hostages remained in a nightclub. Heavily armed police and special arrest teams, some wearing masks, were massed outside the popular club.
Police said there was currently no reason to suspect a “terrorist motive” for the incident in Ede.
“A hostage situation involving several people is underway in a building in the center” of the town of Ede, police said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
It is not known how many people are being held but local media have reported around four or five people are involved.
Police said they had cleared a cordon around a cafe, with residents of around 150 houses being brought to safety.
The local municipality said on its website that the town center had been closed off and that riot police and explosives experts were at the scene.
Authorities called on residents to avoid the town center and train traffic was being diverted.
“We see there are many questions about the motive. At this time there is no indication of a terrorist motive,” police said.
The Netherlands has seen a series of terror attacks and plots but not on the scale of other European countries, such as France or Britain.
In 2019, the country was stunned by a shooting spree on a tram in the city of Utrecht that claimed four lives.
A Turkish-born man identified as Gokmen Tanis later admitted a terror motive for the rampage that virtually shut down the country’s fourth biggest city.
Also in 2019, Dutch police charged two suspected jihadists with planning a terror attack using suicide bombs and car bombs. Authorities said an attack was planned that year.
A young Afghan man identified only as “Jawed S.” stabbed two American tourists at Amsterdam Central Station in 2018, later telling judges he wanted “to protect the Prophet Muhammad.”
The assault came a day after far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders announced he was canceling a plan to stage a cartoon competition to caricature the Prophet Muhammad.
At the time Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid urged Muslims to attack Dutch troops after Wilders’ “hostile act by this country (the Netherlands) against all Muslims.”
In the most serious incident involving a terror attack, outspoken Dutch anti-Islam film director Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in 2004 in Amsterdam by a man with ties to a Dutch Islamist terror network.
A hostage drama at a nightclub in the eastern Netherlands ended peacefully after several hours on Saturday with the arrest of a suspect — a man wearing a balaclava mask who exited the building and surrendered to police.
“The last hostage has just been released. One person has been arrested,” a police statement said. “We cannot share more information at this time.”
Several people, including employees, had been taken hostage at the Cafe Petticoat in the town of Ede early on Saturday morning. The motive was unclear.
Officials said at a news briefing that the suspect, who was previously known to police, had threatened the hostages with knives. There was no indication of a terrorist motive, police have said.
The suspect walked out of the club, put his hands behind his head and got to his knees before being handcuffed by police, a Reuters video journalist at the scene said.
Police explosives units had been deployed to the building in the town center. Streets in the area had been evacuated and trains canceled to the town, nearly 80 km (50 miles) from Amsterdam.
